He has achieved what no German sailor has done before him: Melwin Fink is the first in his class to cross the finish line in a leg of the legendary Mini-Transat. At 16:05, the skipper of the Mini 6.50 "Signforcom" crossed the finish line off La Palma after 10 days, 35 minutes and 37 seconds as the clear leader in the series boat classification.
"Melwin seems totally fit, totally tidy. He said nothing is broken on the boat, everything looks good," reports YACHT reporter Marc Bielefeld, who met Fink in the dinghy together with his parents.
Historic result
The best results achieved by German sailors to date were Jörg Riechers' outstanding second place in the overall standings on his Proto "Lilienthal" at the 2017 Transat and Morten Bogacki's third place two years ago, also on "Lilienthal". Law student Melwin Fink is thus writing a small piece of sailing history.
Simply sailed on
The fans and followers of the Mini-Transat are still discussing how this result came about. After a weather warning from the race committee, which went out to all participants via VHF radio, and the recommendation to head for a harbour of refuge, all but six of the 90 skippers followed the advice and headed for harbours around Cape Finisterre. Only the four leading proto-sailors and Melwin Fink - and initially Christian Kargl - stayed out and sailed on. They were all further south than the majority of the fleet at the time.
Tension over the last few miles
The manoeuvre enabled Melwin Fink to sail well over 100 nautical miles ahead of Christian Kargl, who was sailing in second position, and the rest of the field. However, the closer he got to the finish, the smaller the gap became, as the field was able to gain more speed from behind with more pressure in the sails.
At the last position update before crossing the finish line at 15:30, Fink was still making 5.2 knots, while Kargl was making 7.5 knots and would soon pass the virtual gate as well. However, the gap to Fink was still more than 100 nautical miles. The 44-year-old Austrian is expected to reach the finish line on Friday.
Professional sailor Boris Herrmann was one of the first to comment on Melwin Fink's performance: "Super job!" wrote the role model for young German offshore sailors.
Melwin Fink will therefore go into the second leg, which starts at the end of October from the Canary Islands and leads across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, with a decent lead - but he is not yet certain of overall victory.
German participants in the Mini-Transat so far:
2021: Lennart Burke, Melwin Fink, Lina Rixgens, Marc Eric Siewert
2019: Morten Bogacki
2017: Jörg Riechers, Andreas Deubel, Oliver Tessloff, Lina Rixgens
2015: Dominik Lenk, Chris Lükermann, Jan Heinze
2013: Henrik Masekowitz
2011: Jörg Riechers (DNS), Björn Freels
2009: Andreas Lindlahr, Norbert Maibaum, Jörg Riechers
2007: Henrik Masekowitz, Dominik Zürrer
2001: Boris Herrmann
1997: Matthias Beilken
1981: Dagmar Häckel (DNF)
1979: Alex Wopper
1977: Wolfgang Quix
